Kevin Duff has a view any Portlander would envy—and one
that’s warming up the already heated battle over the future of the
city’s Water Bureau.

On a clear morning,
Duff can sit on the wraparound front porch of a brand-new two-bedroom
home and take in vistas of three mountains: Mount Hood to the east, and
Mount St. Helens and Mount Adams to the north.

“It’s a view I’d
never be able to afford if I didn’t have this job,” Duff says. “If I
want the job, I have to live here. Poor me.”

Duff doesn’t own any
of what he surveys. Instead, he’s just moved into a $456,000 house on
top of Powell Butte, paid for by the Portland Water Bureau. Duff is
caretaker of the nature park and the $82 million underground reservoir
currently under construction on the butte, located near Southeast 162nd
Avenue and Powell Boulevard.

SPLASHDOWN: The water caretaker’s house on Powell Butte (top) was built by California-based SSC Construction to resemble a historic dairy farmhouse, while the visitors’ center (above) is designed for school field trips.

IMAGE: Bethlayne Hansen

A hundred yards down
the hill is a $590,000 visitors’ center: a solar-roofed shed near a
Benson Bubbler water fountain with a drinking dish for dogs.

The total price tag
of $1.1 million for the 1,527-square-foot house, the visitors’ center
and landscaping falls on the city’s water ratepayers. The Portland City
Council approved the project more than two years ago. But with Duff
settling in and the visitors’ center set to open next month, the
buildings are debuting as showcases of undisciplined Water Bureau
spending, even as utility rates rise.

That’s like
gasoline—not water—on the fire for businesses and activists launching an
initiative campaign to wrest control of the city’s water and sewer
bureaus from City Hall next year.

“It’s an affront to
common sense,” says Kent Craford, co-petitioner for the initiative to
create a public water district. “It should stand as a symbol of City
Hall’s dysfunctional management of our water utilities.”

Faced with a
political fight for control of Portland’s utilities, Commissioner Nick
Fish has begun cutting costs across the two bureaus, which he oversees.
Earlier this month, Fish put the manufactured home where Duff previously
lived on the market for $13,499.

Fish, who voted to approve the Powell Butte project in April 2011, declined to comment for this story.

Commissioner Amanda Fritz cast the only vote against the project—and questioned the cost of “a really nice house.”

Water Bureau
officials say Powell Butte reservoir planners—led by contractor CH2M
Hill—were compelled by land-use rules to include the buildings. Powell
Butte is the second-largest park in Portland behind Forest Park, and
serves the low-income neighborhoods at the easternmost edge of the city.

“We spent six months
working with the public on these facilities,” says Water Bureau
spokesman Tim Hall. “The Water Bureau did what we could to honor what
the public wanted.”

Now that it’s
finished, project supervisors for the Water Bureau say the house is
solid and reflects Portland’s values: It’s energy efficient, built from
materials like a recycled high-school gym floor, and able to withstand
snow and ice storms.

“It’s built hell-bent
for stout,” says Rick Lapp, a Water Bureau project manager at Powell
Butte. “It seems a little overbuilt, but it needs to stand the test of
time.”

The visitors’ center
includes a giant map of the city’s water system, a stone amphitheater,
and displays on Native American tribes who once hunted on Powell Butte.

Craford scoffs at opening an educational exhibit at an underground reservoir.

“Are there going to be re-enactments there?” he asks. “Maybe they can re-enact pouring the concrete.”

Duff, who makes
$49,982 a year at the Water Bureau, says his job includes opening and
closing the park’s gates, eradicating invasive species of weeds, picking
upsyringes, and confronting rule breakers.

“It’s usually just a
knucklehead with a BB gun, and I go and talk to ’em,” Duff says. “People
have learned you can’t get away with stuff here.”

He says the Water Bureau is saving money by building a high-quality home.

“It’s smart to stop
just throwing money away on cheap structures and build something that
can last,” he says. “This house is going to be here forever.”